Merged 8.8 quake in Sendai, Japan

[dudalb]

Did you draw them yourself? How big are they? Framed?

The Spelling Nazi Strikes.......

 

[William Parcher]

I think the situation is far more complex and worse than simply "seawater in a rice field". A tsunami of this magnitude moves great quantities of sediment, sand, soil and debris. It literally reshapes the land. Additionally, there is no way to know what kinds of fuel, oil, chemicals, substances, etc. have been distributed across the land.

Farmers no longer have homes, farming equipment, roads, pathways, fences, etc. The berms and irrigation trenches for rice fields are obliterated.

It isn't simply a matter of going back to your property and seeing what you have left. You are no longer able to identify your own property. With all landmarks gone, surveyors will need to be used to re-establish property boundaries.

All sorts of soil tests will need to be done to determine if your field is even safe to restore to agriculture.

 

[The Central Scrutinizer]

I think the situation is far more complex and worse than simply "seawater in a rice field". A tsunami of this magnitude moves great quantities of sediment, sand, soil and debris. It literally reshapes the land. Additionally, there is no way to know what kinds of fuel, oil, chemicals, substances, etc. have been distributed across the land.

Farmers no longer have homes, farming equipment, roads, pathways, fences, etc. The berms and irrigation trenches for rice fields are obliterated.

It isn't simply a matter of going back to your property and seeing what you have left. You are no longer able to identify your own property. With all landmarks gone, surveyors will need to be used to re-establish property boundaries.

All sorts of soil tests will need to be done to determine if your field is even safe to restore to agriculture.

Plus, it moved the whole island 8 feet to the east, so that will affect the length of the growing season.

 

[technoextreme]

Agreed. However the nuclear situation is a developing and changing one. The earthquake and tsunami have happened and the focus now is in dealing with the aftermath. The focus will be on the nuclear situation until its resolved and then people can get down to the hard work of rebuilding their lives, towns and country.

Except for the far numerous people dying from cold, disease, and hunger. I'm really sure they are happy to know that you really could care less about them.

 

[dudalb]

People dying of cold and starvation is not nearly as Sexy as Nuclear Scare Stories.
I

 

[Kestrel]

I think the situation is far more complex and worse than simply "seawater in a rice field". A tsunami of this magnitude moves great quantities of sediment, sand, soil and debris. It literally reshapes the land. Additionally, there is no way to know what kinds of fuel, oil, chemicals, substances, etc. have been distributed across the land.

Farmers no longer have homes, farming equipment, roads, pathways, fences, etc. The berms and irrigation trenches for rice fields are obliterated.

The destroyed facilities and equipment along with the debris will be a problem. But removing debris and replacing facilities will provide plenty of jobs. Assuming the government steps in and provides financial assistance.

It isn't simply a matter of going back to your property and seeing what you have left. You are no longer able to identify your own property. With all landmarks gone, surveyors will need to be used to re-establish property boundaries.

The outlines of most fields are still visible. And with GPS technology, it's not hard to find the right field.

All sorts of soil tests will need to be done to determine if your field is even safe to restore to agriculture.

Take some samples and send them in for testing. Any good farmer does this on a routine basis.

 

[Soapy Sam]

I heard an interesting comment about the Japanese nuclear workers today.

The older workers (59+) are volunteering for the hazardous duties as they have lived a full life and wish to spare the younger folk the result of extreme radiation exposure.

Is this a form of Bushido?

It's a form of bravery.

 

[Soapy Sam]

Looking at the geography on Google Maps, it seems that many of these towns were built on the flat land at the head of coves/fjords/sea lochs. The tsunami has obviously been funnelled by the bays right at the towns. The designated tsunami refuges were in some cases much too low for safety in a tsunami of the height that actually happened, and became death traps. Building standards obviously hadn't taken anything like that into account, as it's fairly easy to see how properties could be built to have a good chance of standing up to that sort of wave, but few were constructed in that way.
Rolfe.

I suspect the problem is that making a house earthquake proof means making it flexible and light, while making it tsunami proof means making it high and extremely strong.
Doing both would require three storey, extremely strong steel towers, with an open girder ground floor. Cost prohibitive and probably wouldn't work anyway.

People live where there's a living to be made. Naples, San Fransisco, Tokyo, nobody guarantees it will last for ever- and as Clarke pointed out in "Rendezvous wiith Rama", we are running out of empty space- wherever anything bad happens now, there are large numbers of people. Consider what would happen should the New Madrid earthquake of 1811 celebrate a centennial recurrence.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1812_New_Madrid_earthquake

 

[quadraginta]

In general I agree with William. The effects of the quake and tsunami are not to be trivialized. Reconstruction will be one hell of a chore.

I was thinking about the salinity question in an isolated sort of fashion. Salinity is a concern in a lot of ways, and a lot of areas. Not merely agriculture, and not just at the coast.

Two years ago all of the fish were killed in a forty five mile stretch of unusually pristine and uncontaminated stream only a couple of dozen miles from my father's home because of salt water ... in the mountains, over two hundred miles from the nearest coastline. Spillage from an abandoned mine and illegal dumping from the Marcellus Shale drilling which has started up around there were the source, and toxin from an algae bloom (which had never been seen there before) that thrived on the increase in salinity was the culprit. But the results were still not good.

 

[Skwinty]

It's a form of bravery.

True, given that Bushido is "The way of the warrior".

"If a man does not investigate into the matter of Bushido daily, it will be
difficult for him to die a brave and manly death."

 

[William Parcher]

Take some samples and send them in for testing. Any good farmer does this on a routine basis.

It is my understanding that routine soil testing is done to reveal nutrient profiles, not exotic and unprecedented contaminations.

 

[William Parcher]

I was thinking about the salinity question in an isolated sort of fashion. Salinity is a concern in a lot of ways, and a lot of areas. Not merely agriculture, and not just at the coast.

Right, and the article you linked seems to address agricultural concerns as only if "seawater in a rice field". It doesn't take into account very specific issues with a catastrophic tsunami event. Like a 20,000 gallon oil container draining into a crop field. What other fancy chemicals are now distributed into the land?

 

[dudalb]

It's a form of bravery.

There is a LONG tradition of duty unto death in Japan, from the 47 Ronin to the Kamikazes of World War 2.

 

[William Parcher]

The long reach. BBC News...

2130: General Motors says it is suspending production at its Shreveport Assembly plant in Louisiana in the US next week because of a parts shortage resulting from the crisis in Japan, Reuters reports.

2030: And now Hawaii is bracing for another hit - a loss in travelers from Japan, AP reports. Gov Neil Abercrombie has predicted that the economic consequences will be severe in a tourism-dependent state. Hawaii is the top US destination for Japanese travelers, hosting more than 1.2m last year.

2025: Hawaii, which was also struck by a tsunami after the earthquake off Japan, is another nation struggling in the aftermath of the disaster. The wave caused millions of dollars worth of damage to homes, businesses and boats, reports the Associated Press.

 

[Travis]

Say, a memory card containing the sum total of everything I've worked on for the last 18 years. Stuff I can't replace, as well. Pets you can replace, though I'd grab them if I could, of course.

You can replace children too you know. Just leave the five year old behind, he/she will only bog you down, then get busy at the refugee shelter making a new kid. But definitely save that memory card. Eighteen years of work is certainly worth more than anything's or anyone's life.

 

[AdMan]

The long reach. BBC News...

2025: Hawaii, which was also struck by a tsunami after the earthquake off Japan, is another nation struggling in the aftermath of the disaster. The wave caused millions of dollars worth of damage to homes, businesses and boats, reports the Associated Press.

Not good, BBC. Obama birthers are going to jump on that.

 

[Belz...]

You can replace children too you know. Just leave the five year old behind, he/she will only bog you down, then get busy at the refugee shelter making a new kid. But definitely save that memory card. Eighteen years of work is certainly worth more than anything's or anyone's life.

While we're building armies of strawmen, why not replace "children" with "the whole Earth ecosystem", while you're at it ?

Late ETA: Travis, I don't want to get into too much of this derail anyway. To summarize: initially I was simply baffled by people who _went back_ for their pets and died. I wouldn't go back for that damn memory card. I'd grab it as I left, and I'd also grab the pets while I was at it, anyway. But I do understand and admire people who go back to save _other_ people, even when it costs them their own lives.

 

[William Parcher]

Not good, BBC.

I saw that too. Well, we have the Hawaiian Nation and the Conch Republic.

 

[BeAChooser]

Do Californians have designated tsunami shelters? Do they have alarms? Do they have emergency drills? If not, and the same thing happens, you can double the death toll, proportionately speaking, I would think.

There are few if any faults in or near California that can generate the sort of earthquake that caused the Japan tsunami. The big faults in Southern California aren't even in the ocean. The largest confirmed, local-source, historic quake generated a tsunami that was only about 7 feet in a nearby coastal town (Surf). That would not be enough to cause much of a problem inland in most California communities. There are also controversial accounts of a large tsunami during the 1812 quake off of Santa Barbara. But claims by some that waves were 35-50 feet appear to be highly exaggerated given that the quake was only about magnitude 7 and there were no reported deaths. One expert I read says there may have been waves as high as 13 feet at Refugio Beach. But all in all, local quakes are not the real threat.

If you want to worry about tsunamis in California, then look to Washington and Oregon, where there is a subduction zone (the Cascadia zone) off the coast and a history of 9+ quakes. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Cascadia_subduction_zone_USGS.png Indian tribes in those states record what appear to be accounts of tsunamis that were 60 feet or more in height and there is geological evidence to back up those accounts in those two states. In fact some of that evidence suggests tsunamis of 100 feet in height have occurred due to that fault. The last major quake in that zone occured in 1700 and it appears to have caused a 15 foot tsunami in Japan. So they can go a long ways. A Cascadia quake will definitely affect California. Just look at what happened in Crescent City as a result of the 9.2 1964 Alaskan quake, which was more than twice the distance from Northern California as the Cascadia fault yet it caused a 20+ foot tsunami due to the local topography. A 9.0+ Cascadia quake might generate much larger tsunamis in California, and Cascadia fault quakes occur rather frequently (every 300 to 600 years, on average). Some geologists are predicting a 10%+ probability that the Cascadia Zone will rupture with a 9+ quake in the next 50 years. The good news is that it would take hours for a Cascade tsunami to reach California, allowing time to evacuate people and prepare vital infrastructure. Here: http://co.humboldt.ca.us/planning/h...i/10finalhumboldthmpvol1riskassesstsunami.pdf . No need for hysteria, like cities rushing out to buy sirens, but California should probably rethink some things in light of what has happened.

 

[Slayhamlet]

I heard an interesting comment about the Japanese nuclear workers today.

The older workers (59+) are volunteering for the hazardous duties as they have lived a full life and wish to spare the younger folk the result of extreme radiation exposure.

Is this a form of Bushido?

No, it's just common sense. The type of diseases one gets from radiation exposure take years and years to develop. The older people will have mostly already died of natural causes before such diseases can manifest themselves.